patchfoo

扒扯福 <páchěfú>, the fortune of raked-together chatter

Plain SSB web UI. Uses HTML forms instead of client-side JS. Designed for use on low-power and low-resource computers.

Goals

• Support all message schemas commonly used in the main SSB network.
• Make efficient use of screen space, memory, and CPU.
• Run well in dillo browser.
• Serve as a place for experimenting with new HTML-based SSB UIs.

Features

• Render messages with author name and icons.
• Render core ssb message types, git-ssb message types, and raw messages.
• View public log, private log, user feeds, channels, and search.
• Paginate views bidirectionally.
• Compose, preview and publish public and private messages.
• and more

Joining SSB with Patchfoo

Note: these guides may or may not be updated for using the binary installer, which may be an easier way to install patchfoo. (See the Install section below.)

Find this guide on github or on SSB.

Requirements

• ssb-server (may be bundled in Patchwork, Patchbay or Oasis)

For development and installing from source:

• Node.js
• ssb-npm ≥ v2.0.4
• git-ssb

Recommended ssb-server plugins (see "Install extras" below):

• ssb-backlinks
• ssb-private
• ssb-search

Note about Node v12

If you are installing patchfoo from source or ssb-npm with Node v12 or later, after the installation process you may need to separately install sodium-native v3. Some of patchfoo's dependencies still depend on sodium-native v2 which does not work easily with Node v12. sodium-native v2 can be swapped with v3 without any problem. More info in this thread: %VPeffQA...

Install

Easy install: use the binary installer below.

patchfoo can run either as a standalone process or as an ssb-server plugin.

Running as a ssb-server plugin is faster and uses less resources. But it requires you to run ssb-server from the command-line, or use a ssb-server distribution that allows installing ssb-server plugins.

Running as a standalone process should work while you are running a ssb-server distribution such as Patchwork, Patchbay, or Oasis. It also could potentially work with ssb-server implementations other than the Node.js one.

The binary installer installs patchfoo to run as a standalone process. It bundles Node.js so you don't need to have node/npm installed. You still need a ssb-server running though. You also need a connection to the main SSB network for the installation script to fetch the necessary blobs.

Binary install

This installs a single executable file "patchfoo" on your system, with an embedded Node.js.

Install patchfoo v1.6.0 binary for linux-{x64,armv7,arm64,x86} or macos-x64:

curl 'http://localhost:8989/blobs/get/&gepauvmWgqFSfXz1Oa9H5sgDB5PIO72L4ffBqTlbc4A=.sha256' | sh

Licenses for patchfoo v1.6.0 binary release

Install from source

as a standalone process

This is how to install patchfoo using git-ssb and ssb-npm and run it as a standalone process with a local ssb-server.

Running as a standalone process this way is useful if you can use git-ssb and ssb-npm and are either just trying out patchfoo, or want to continue using a ssb-server distribution that doesn't allow installing ssb-server plugins, or want to develop patchfoo and not have to frequently restart ssb-server.

git clone ssb://%YAg1hicat+2GELjE2QJzDwlAWcx0ML+1sXEdsWwvdt8=.sha256 patchfoo
cd patchfoo
ssb-npm install --production --branch %Et6Ij2bOS4SUzpimKTVUdMPnb8vjP8Lg2dObBJ/0oGE=.sha256
npm start

as a ssb-server plugin

This is the traditional way to install and run patchfoo.

cd ~/.ssb/node_modules
git clone ssb://%YAg1hicat+2GELjE2QJzDwlAWcx0ML+1sXEdsWwvdt8=.sha256 patchfoo
cd patchfoo
ssb-npm install --production --branch %Et6Ij2bOS4SUzpimKTVUdMPnb8vjP8Lg2dObBJ/0oGE=.sha256
node enable-plugin.js

Install via ssb-npm

patchfoo sometimes has releases published on ssb-npm.

To install packages globally with [ssb-]npm, you need a npm prefix set. That is a directory that npm packages will get installed to when do a global (-g) install. If you don't already have a npm prefix set, I recommend using ~/.local:

npm config set prefix ~/.local

The bin directory under the prefix should also be in your $PATH. On some GNU/Linux systems, ~/.profile automatically adds ~/.local/bin to $PATH if that exists as a directory. Otherwise, you should edit your ~/.profile or similar file to add the npm prefix's bin directory to $PATH:

PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH

as a standalone process

This installs patchfoo globally and gives you a patchfoo executable.

Note: if you previously installed a patchfoo binary release, [ssb-]npm will not overwrite it. You must manually remove it (e.g. rm ~/.local/bin/patchfoo) before installing via ssb-npm.

ssb-npm install -g patchfoo --branch %Et6Ij2bOS4SUzpimKTVUdMPnb8vjP8Lg2dObBJ/0oGE=.sha256

as a ssb-server plugin

This does a global ssb-npm install and then symlinks it into place and installs it with ssb-server as a plugin.

ssb-npm install -g patchfoo --branch %Et6Ij2bOS4SUzpimKTVUdMPnb8vjP8Lg2dObBJ/0oGE=.sha256
dir=$(dirname $(realpath $(which patchfoo)))
ln -s "$dir" ~/.ssb/node_modules/
node "$dir/enable-plugin.js"

Install extras

To most effectively render things, patchfoo needs the ssb-backlinks
and ssb-private ssb-server plugins. The ssb-search plugin is also helpful, for fulltext search of your SSB DB.

If you are using a ssb-server distribution like Patchwork, Patchbay or Oasis's ssb-server, these plugins are already included. If you are using ssb-server from the command-line, the plugins have to be installed separately:

sbot plugins.install ssb-backlinks --yes
sbot plugins.install ssb-private --yes
sbot plugins.install ssb-search --yes

The --yes argument above is a "dummy" argument to work around the error "Cannot set property 'module' of undefined" (more info: %lvLBrXS...)

Config

Pass config options with args e.g. npm start -- --patchfoo.port 8027 if running standalone, or sbot server --patchfoo.port 8027 if running as an sbot plugin. To make config options persistent, set them in ~/.ssb/config, e.g.:

{
  "patchfoo": {
    "port": 8027,
    "host": "::",
    "filter": "all",
    "showPrivates": true,
    "previewVotes": true,
    "voteBranches": false,
    "ooo": true,
    "nav": [
      "new",
      "public",
      "private",
      "mentions",
      "peers",
      "status",
      "channels",
      "tags",
      "friends",
      "search"
      "live",
      "compose",
      "drafts",
      "emojis",
      "self",
      "searchbox"
    ],
    "dir": "patchfoo",
    "scriptDir": "script",
    "draftsDir": "drafts"
  }
}

Config options

• port: port for the server to listen on. default: 8027
• host: host address for the server to listen on. default: localhost
• base: base url that the app is running at. default: /
• blob_base: base url for links to ssb blobs. default: same as base
• img_base: base url for blobs embedded as images. default: same as base
• encode_msgids: whether to URL-encode message ids in local links. default: true
• auth: HTTP auth password. default: null (no password required)
• allowAddresses: Array of IP addresses allowed to connect. default: null (allow any to connect). Note if host is localhost then this setting is useless.
• allowHosts: Array of hostnames allowed that patchfoo may be connected at, or * to allow using any hostname. Default is to allow patchfoo's configured port, at patchfoo's configured host, localhost, 127.0.0.1 or ::1. If hostname includes trailing colon without port, it means use patchfoo's server port. * for the port means allow connections at any port. If hostname begins with ., subdomains under it are allowed too.
• trustedReferers: Array of URL patterns allowed as base of HTTP Referers for POST & PUT requests to patchfoo, or * to allow any. Default is http:// followed by patchfoo's host and port, or localhost, 127.0.0.1 or [::1] at patchfoo's port. Port may be wildcard (*) to allow any port, or blank (trailing :) for patchfoo's port. Subdomains can be allowed by beginning the hostname with a period (.). patchfoo subpaths which may contain arbitrary blob content are excluded from the set of allowed referers.
• filter: Filter setting. "all" to show all messages. "invert" to show messages that would be hidden by the default setting. Otherwise the default setting applies, which is so to only show messages authored or upvoted by yourself or by a feed that you you follow. Exceptions are that if you navigate to a user feed page, you will see messages authored by that feed, and if you navigate to a message page, you will see that message - regardless of the filter setting. The filter setting may also be specified per-request as a query string parameter.
• showPrivates: Whether or not to show private messages. Default is true. Overridden by filter=all.
• previewVotes: Whether to preview creating votes/likes/digs (true) or publish them immediately (false). default: false
• previewContacts: Whether to preview creating contact/(un)follow/block messages (true) or publish them immediately (false). default: false
• voteBranches: whether to publish vote messages with thread branch and root properties, and include vote messages in branch properties of a posts. default: false.
• ooo: if true, use ssb-ooo to try to fetch missing messages in threads. also can set per-request with query string ?ooo=1. default: false
codeInTextareas: if true, render markdown code blocks in textareas. if false, render them in pre tags. default: false
• nav: array of nav links. Each item may be a string, object or special value. Special values are "searchbox" and "self", which are the search field box, and link to the current feed id's page, respectively. Any other string is interpretted to be a link to the page of that name prefixed with a forward slash. An object may have properties name and url, and that will be interpretted as a link with given name and URL (with toUrl conversions applied). default is the list in the readme above.
• dir: name of directory in ~/.ssb/ to use for patchfoo things. default: "patchfoo".
• scriptDir: name of directory in patchfoo's directory (as set bypatchfoo.dirconfig option above) to use for user scripts. default:"script"`.
• draftsDir: name of directory in patchfoo's directory (as set bypatchfoo.dirconfig option above) to use for message draft data. default:"drafts"`.
• newLimit: limit of messages to show on/newpage. Default: 500. Overridable with query string parameterlimit=...`.
• dualMarkdownPreview: Preview messages in composer in multiple SSB markdown implementations, ssb-marked and ssb-markdown >= 3. Overridable with query string parameter dualMd=1.
• replyMentionFeeds: Mention thread branch authors in "reply" property, like Patchwork. Default true.

TODO

• Add more sophisticated private messages view.
• Count digs
• Show network status
• Add UI for using pub invites

Art

Doodle by Mia Gooper from disussion of Chinese translation of the name of patchfoo: %SLqfK1Q...

Troglodita Seal of Approval, presented by @hoz in %w+oNAm1...

Survey

Want to help patchfoo to improve? Share your feedback in the patchfoo User Survey!

License

Copyright (C) 2017-2020 Secure Scuttlebutt Consortium

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Affero General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.